iNaturalist’s earthworms desperately need identification and curation. I’m sure there are other iNat users who have also dedicated themselves to identifying some group that is frequently misidentified and I would like to know what you’ve done to improve these situations. Trying to review ~150k obser…

Skimming thru your journal posts - now to the comments. That is your potential pool of interested identifiers willing to help. From your link https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?reviewed=any&quality_grade=research&taxon_id=81545&disagreements=true&place_id=any in https://www.inatural…

I don’t have much input into the matter but I will say thank you for having the concern and communicating this. I wouldn’t of been aware otherwise so I feel making a post here was a good step.

[image] thirty_legs: this is probably also due to observers being misled by the ridiculous common name “Common Earthworm.” Remove it then, there has been a flag open about it for months with no objections.

[image] thirty_legs: Although there have been some attempts from earthworm specialists and amateur identifiers to correct misidentified earthworms by either providing correct IDs or moving observations to higher taxa, none of their admirable efforts have managed to undo the CV issues due to the …

Thank you for your service! It can be a lonely battle while you’re waiting for backup. Keep doing what you’re doing. Help will eventually come! The very fact that you have so many earthworm observations to deal with, shows that many people are interested in earthworms. Maybe 1% of them might be in…

I started out IDing barnacles and ran into a lot of the same issues. They’re a weird and confusing group with very few people interested or actively IDing. Very general common names, lots of look-alikes, so many blurry or far away pictures. It took a lot of research to get a basic level of understan…

Ultimately, there is limited things you can do. The CV is just not well equipped for a group like this. I would say join others and advocate for CV changes / improvements. There are many threads. Or double down and try to get more earthworm taxa in the CV to help it become more cautious. There are…

Firstly thanks a ton for tackling this task. I think you’re doing everything well, it’s just one of the biggest misidentification issues on the platform so it’s going to be frustrating. I’ve been aware that earthworms are a mess for years but other than pushing back an L. terrestris observation or t…

Yeah, there’s been a couple people who have started getting diagnostic pics of the US invasive pheretimoids like A. agrestis. I had hoped for that species, A. tokioensis, and M. hilgendorfi to all get in the CV together since they are always together and nearly indistinguishable, but looks like hilg…

iNaturalist's earthworm problem and how to fix it

General

caththalictroides September 26, 2025, 3:08pm 7

Similar problem with fungi: you might find this discussion interesting.

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/ai-suggestions-in-fungal-observations/69297

Identifiers: Read the notes!

Topic		Replies	Views
New to iNaturalist and trying to help with identifications General question , identification	106	5429	August 22, 2023
Retraining the CV on commonly misidentified species General	18	616	November 19, 2025
A Kind Reminder To Only Identify What You Are Sure Of! General	31	2080	April 8, 2024
Identify identifiers IDs General identify	126	3641	September 13, 2025
New paper about using iNat to study Mollusca in Brazil General	27	1465	July 13, 2022

iNaturalist's earthworm problem and how to fix it

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